George Canning

George Canning (11 April 1770-8 August 1827) was Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 12 April to 8 August 1827, succeeding Lord Liverpool and preceding Frederick John Robinson. A Tory, his 119-day tenure as Prime Minister remains the shortest in British history.

Biography
George Canning was born in Marylebone, Middlesex, England on 11 April 1770 to a failed businessman and an actress, and his uncle provided for his education and introduced him to several prominent Whigs during the 1780s. He was one of the Whigs who, led by Edmund Burke, became conservatives following the French Revolution, and he joined William Pitt the Younger's Tory Party. In 1793, he was elected to Parliament as MP for Newtown, a rotten borough on the Isle of Wight. He served as Paymaster of the Forces from 1800 to 1801, Treasurer of the Navy from 1804 to 1806, and Foreign Secretary from 1807 to 1809, masterminding the seizure of the Danish fleet at Copenhagen in 1807 to assure the Royal Navy's naval supremacy during the Napoleonic Wars. In 1809, he was wounded in a duel with his rival Lord Castlereagh, and Spencer Perceval took Canning's place as the heir to Prime Minister William Cavendish-Bentinck. He remained out of high politics until Perceval's assassination in 1812, and he subsequently served as ambassador to Portugal from 1814 to 1816, President of the Board of Control from 1816 to 1821, and Foreign Secretary and Leader of the House of Commons from 1822 to 1827. Under Canning, Britain guaranteed the independence of Spain and Portugal's former New World possessions, and he supported the United States' Monroe Doctrine. When Lord Liverpool resigned in 1827, Canning succeeded him as Prime Minister, leading the pro-free trade and Catholic emancipation "Canningite" faction in opposition to the Duke of Wellington's "Ultra-Tories". He invited several Whigs to join his cabinet, but he suddenly died just 119 days into his tenure at the age of 57.